(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a customer attended sanitary food dispenser. More specifically, it relates to a sanitary food dispenser for dispensing individual food servings with a quantity of sauce or toppings selected by the customer.
(2) Background of the Invention
Over the last few decades the fast food industry has continuously evolved and grown into what now amounts to an extremely significant and economically important phase of our retail economy. One of the more recent phases of this evolution, which incidentally parallels changes in other retail distribution systems, is the increasing use of customer attended (do-it-yourself) food dispensers. However, whenever such a concept is implemented, a justifiable concern as to maintaining sanitary conditions and an overall healthy environment is important, particularly when the food product is not amenable to being wrapped and/or requires a final preparation step such as applying sauces, condiments, or the like. Thus, a need for a sanitary food dispenser capable of dispensing individual food servings such as various chips and the like with sauce toppings (e.g. nachos with molten cheese, the so-called frito pie, etc.) on a customer attended basis still exists.